[horv]

Relevant to the first book, but last year and this year have been awesome for women's achievement in ultrarunning:

- Last year Courtney Dauwalter won the three most iconic trail ultras in a single season, when most professional runners will only target one. I've seen a lot of people consider this to be the single most impressive trail running performance by any athlete. https://run.outsideonline.com/trail/trail-racing/film-about-...

- In the spring, Jasmin Paris (featured in Better, Faster, Farther) was the first woman to finish the Barkley which is considered one of the hardest running races out there. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/23/us/barkley-marathons-jasm...

- This happened after the article was published, but Tara Dower just set a new overall FKT for the Appalachian Trail and crushed the previous women's FKT by 5 or 6 days. https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a62330229/tara-dower-appal...

[nonameiguess]

At shorter distances, Sifan Hassan also pulled off a triple-medal performance (bronze at 5000 and 10000, gold at marathon) at the Olympics that hasn't happened in 70 years and most people thought would be impossible in the modern era of professionalized and specialized running.

[heinrichhartman]

Hi horv,

For Courtney Dauwalter are we talking "won" as in across all starters or across all women starters?

Winning against a mixed field would be beyond impressive!

[carterparks]

She won across all women starters.

She has, however, won in mixed field before. In 2017, she won the Moab 240 outright.

The longer the distance (see: this 240mi race and the AT FKT) the closer the division between male and female (and also age).

[voisin]

Pretty sure she was the first place finisher overall. I am not sure how much of a gender advantage there is over those distances. Similarly, age is less of a factor too, with older athletes regularly beating those who are a decade younger.